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ENGLISH SKETCHES 



FROM "THE SKETCH BOOK" 



HV 

WASHINGTON IRVING. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH ORIGINAL DESIGNS BY EMINENT ARTISTS. 



k 
2v, 



% JUL 24 1886 w ) 

" WASH " 



I'll I l.A DB I, I' III A: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

LONDON: 16 RUSSELL STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 




Entered according to Aot of Congress, in the > > ar 1863, by 

(i. P. rriN \m. 

In tin- Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 

of New York. 



Entered according to a. i of Congress, In the your 1873, by 

J, & UPPINCOTT A CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Copyright, 1886, by J. B. LIPPINt OTT I OMPANY, 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

BUB \1- LIFE IN ENGLAND 7 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY 18 

LITTLE BRITAIN 33 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON 53 











RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 

PAGE 

English Rural Scene 7 

English Park Scenery 10 

Cottage U 

Going to Church 15 

English Cottage Life 17 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

Interior of Westminster Abbey 20 

Poets' Corner 22 

Tail-Piece : Reliques of Edward the Confessor 32 

LITTLE BRITAIN. 

Initial : Little Britain 33 

Tail-Piece: Bowls, etc 41 

The Lady-Mayoress 46 

Tail-Piece 52 

STB A TFORD-ON- A VON. 

Shakspeare's Birthplace 53 

Mine Ease in Mine Inn 55 

Stratford Church 57 

Shakspeare's Tomb 61 

"Hark! Hark! the Lark!" . . . 67 

View of Stratford-on-Avon 68 

Charlecot Manor 71 

I Fall at Charlecot 73 

Tomb of Sir Thomas Lucy 75 

Shakspeare before Sir Thomas Lucy 77 

Tail-Piece: Falstaff 80 

5 




RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



Oh! friendly to the best pursuits of man, 
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, 
Domestic life in rural pleasures past! 

COWPER. 

The stranger who would form a correct opinion of the Eng- 
lish character must not confine his observations to the metropo- 
lis, lie must go forth into the country ; he must sojourn in 
villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farm-houses, 
cottages; he must wander through parks and gardens; along 
hedges and green lanes ; he must loiter about country churches ; 
attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals; and cope 
with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits 
and humors. 



O ' THE SKETCH BOOK. 

Ill some countries the large cities absorb the wealth and fash- 
ion of the nation ; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and 
intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely 
by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metrop- 
olis is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, of the po- 
lite classes, where they devote a small portion of the year to a 
hurry of gayety and dissipation, and, having indulged this kind 
of carnival, return again to the apparently more congenial hab- 
its of rural life. The various orders of society are therefore 
diffused over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the most 
retired neighborhoods all'ord specimens of the different ranks. 

The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feel- 
ing. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, 
and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of the 
country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even the in- 
habitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and 
bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and evince 
a tact for rural occupation. The merchant has his snug retreat 
in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often displays as 
much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his flower-garden, and 
the maturing of his fruits, as he does in the conduct of his busi- 
ness, and the success of a commercial enterprise. Even those 
less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to pass their lives 
in the midst of din and traffic, contrive, to have something that 
shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. In the most 
dark and dingy quarters of the city, the drawing-room window 
resembles frequently a bank of flowers, every spot capable of 
vegetation has its grass-plot and flower-bed ; and every square 
its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste, and gleaming 
with refreshing verdure. 

Those who see the Englishman only in town are apt to form 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 9 

an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is either 
absorbed in business, or distracted by the thousand engage- 
ments that dissipate time, thought, and feeling, in this huge 
metropolis. He has, therefore, too commonly a look of hurry 
and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be, he is on the 
point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is talking 
on one subject, his mind is wandering to another; and while 
paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall economize 
time so as to pay the other visits allotted in the morning. An 
immense metropolis, like London, is calculated to make men 
selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and transient meet- 
ings, they can but deal briefly in commonplaces. They present 
but the cold superficies of character — its rich and genial quali- 
ties have no time to be warmed into a flow. 

It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope 'to his 
natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formal- 
ities and negative civilities of town; throws off his habits of 
shy reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He man- 
ages to collect round him all the conveniences and elegancies 
of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country-seat 
abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, 
tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, mu- 
sic, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of all kinds, are at 
hand. He puts no constraint either upon his guests or him- 
self, but in the true spirit of hospitality provides the means 
of enjoyment, and leaves every one to partake according to his 
inclination. 

The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in 
what is called landscape gardening, is unrivalled. They have 
studied nature intently, and discover an exquisite sense of her 
beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms, 



10 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



which in other countries she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here 
assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to 
have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like 
Witchery, about their rural abodes. 



■■■ 




Nothing can be more impo- 
sing than the magnificence of 
English park scenery. Vast 
lawns that extend like sheets of 
vivid green, with here and there 

clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage : 
the solemn pomp of groves and woodland glades, with the 
deer trooping in silent herds across them ; the hare bounding 
away to the covert ; or the pheasant, suddenly bursting upon 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



11 



the wing ; the brook, taught to wind in natural meanderings 
or expand into a glassy lake : the sequestered pool, reflecting 
the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, 
and the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters ; while 
some rustic temple or sylvan statue, grown green and dank 
with age, gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion. 

These are but a few of the features of park scenery ; but what 
most delights me, is the creative talent with which the English 
decorate the unostentatious abodes of middle life. The rudest 




habitation, the most unpromising and scanty portion of land, in 
the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. 
With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes at once upon its ca- 
pabilities, and pictures in his mind the future landscape. The 
sterile spot grows into loveliness under his hand ; and yet the 
operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be per- 
ceived. The cherishing and training of some trees ; the cau- 
tious pruning of others ; the nice distribution of flowers and 
plants of tender and graceful foliage ; the introduction of a green 
slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of blue dis- 
tance, or silver gleam of water . all these are managed with a 



12 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

delicate tact, a pervading yet quiet assiduity, like the magic 
touchings with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture. 

The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the 
country has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural 
economy, that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, 
with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to 
their embellishment, The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the 
door, the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the wood- 
bine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about 
the lattice, the pot of flowers in the window, the holly, provi- 
dently planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, 
and to throw in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fire- 
side : all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down 
from high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the pub- 
lic mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cot- 
tage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant. 

The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of the 
English lias had a great and salutary effect upon the national 
character. I do not know a finer race of men than the English 
gentlemen. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which char- 
acterize the men of rank in most countries, they exhibit a union 
of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of 
complexion, which I am inclined to attribute to their living so 
much in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating 
recreations of the country. These hardy exercises produce also 
a healthful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and sim- 
plicity of manners, which even the follies and dissipations of the 
town cannot easily pervert, and can never entirely destroy. In 
the country, too, the different orders of society seem to approach 
more freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate favorably 
upon each other. The distinctions between them do not appear 



liURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 13 

to be so marked and impassable as in the cities. The manner 
in which property has been distributed into small estates and 
farms has established a regular gradation from the nobleman, 
through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and sub- 
stantial farmers, down to the laboring peasantry: and while it 
has thus banded the extremes of society together, has infused 
into each intermediate rank a spirit of independence. This, it 
must be confessed, is not so universally the case at present as it 
was formerly ; the larger estates having, in late years of distress, 
absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the country, almost 
annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. These, however, 
I believe, are but casual breaks in the general system I have 
mentioned. 

In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing. It 
leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty ; 
leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by 
the purest and most elevating of external influences. Such a 
man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The 
man of refinement, therefore, finds nothing revolting in an inter- 
course with the lower orders in rural life, as he does when he 
casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside 
his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the distinctions of 
rank, and to enter into the honest, heart-felt enjoyments of com- 
mon life. Indeed the very amusements of the country bring 
men more and more together; and the sounds of hound and 
horn blend all feelings into harmom'. I believe this is one 
great reason why the nobility and gentry are more popular 
among the inferior orders in England than they are in any other 
country ; and why the latter have endured so many excessive 
pressures and extremities, without repining more generally at 
the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege. 



14 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also be 
attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature ; 
the frequent use of illustrations from rural life ; those incom- 
parable descriptions of nature that abound in the British poets ; 
that have continued down from ''the Flower and the Leaf" of 
Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and 
fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other 
countries appear as if they had paid nature an occasional visit, 
and become acquainted with her general charms ; but the Brit- 
ish poets have lived and revelled with her — they have wooed 
her in her most secret haunts — they have watched her minutest 
caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze — a leaf could 
not rustle to the ground — a diamond drop could not patter in 
the stream — a fragrance could not exhale from the humble vio- 
let, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it 
has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, 
and wrought up into some beautiful morality. 

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupa- 
tions has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great 
part of the island is rather level, and would be monotonous, 
were it not for the charms of culture : but it is studded and 
gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered 
with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sub- 
lime prospects, but rather in little home scenes of rural repose 
and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown 
cottage is a picture : and as the roads are continually winding, 
and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eve is de- 
lighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of capti- 
vating loveliness. 

The great charm, however, of English scenery is the moral 
feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



15 



with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober, well-established princi- 
ples, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Every thing seems 
to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The 




old church of remote architecture, with its low massive portal ; 
its gothic tower ; its windows rich with tracery and painted 



IQ THE SKETCH BOOK. 

glass, in scrupulous preservation ; its stately monuments of war- 
riors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present 
lords of the soil ; its tombstones, recording successive genera- 
tions of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the same 
fields, and kneel at the same altar — the parsonage, a quaint, 
irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the 
tastes of various ages and occupants — the stile and footpath 
leading from the churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along 
shady hedge-rows, according to an immemorial right of way — 
the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its public 
green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the 
present race have sported — the antique family mansion, stand- 
ing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a 
protecting air on the surrounding scene : all these common feat- 
ures of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, 
and hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and local 
attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral 
character of the nation. 

It is a pleasing sight of a Sunday morning, when the bell 
is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold 
the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces and mod- 
est cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to 
church ; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the even- 
ings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to 
exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their 
own hands have spread around them. 

It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affection 
in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest 
virtues and purest enjoj-ments ; and I cannot close these desul- 
tory remarks better than by quoting the words of a modern 
English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity : 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



17 




Through each gradation, from the castled hall, 
The city dome, the villa crowned with shade, 
But chief from modest mansions numberless, 
In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life, 
Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roofed shed; 
This western isle hath long been famed for scenes 
Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling place ; 
Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove, 
(Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard,) 
Can centre in a little quiet nest 
All that desire would fly for through the earth : 
That can, the world eluding, be itself 
A world enjoyed ; that wants no witnesses 
But its own sharers, and approving Heaven ; 
That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft. 
Smiles, though 'tis looking only at the sky.* 



* From a Poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Reverend Rann 
Kennedy, A. M. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

"When 1 behold, with deep astonishment, 

To famous Westminster how there resorte 

Living in brasse or stoney monument, 

Tlic princes and the worthies of all Borte; 

Doe mhi 1 see reformde nobilitie, 

Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation, 

Ami looke upon offenselesse majesty, 

Naked of pomp or earthly domination? 

Ami how a play-game ofa painted stone 

Contents the quiet now and silent sprites, 

Whome all the world which late they stood upon 

Could not content or quench their appetites. 
Life is a frost of cold felicitie, 
And death the thaw of all our yanitie." 

Christolero's Epigrams, bi T. B. 1598. 

N ono oi' those sober and rather melancholy days, in the 
latter pari of Autumn, when the shadows of morning and 
evening almosl mingle together, and throw a gloom over the 
decline of the year, 1 passed several hours in rambling aboul 
Westminster Abbey. There was something congenial to the 
season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile; and, as I 
passed its threshold, seemed like stepping hack into the regions 
of antiquity, and losing myself among the shades of former ages. 

I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, through 
a long, low, vaulted passage, thai had an almost subterranean 
look, being dimly Lighted in one pari by circular perforations 

in the 'massive walls. Through this dark avenue 1 had a dis- 
tant view of the cloisters, with the figure of an old verger, iii his 
18' 







I BR ABBEY. L9 

black gown, moving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming 
like a spectre from one of the neighboring tombs. The approach 
to the abbey through these gloomy monastic remains prepa 
the mind for it- solemn contemplation. The cloisters still retain 
something of the quiet and seclusion of former dayi . The g 
,■.,■(]]- are discolored by damps, and crumbling with age; a coat 
of hoary mosi ha gathered over the inscriptions of the mural 
monuments, and obscured the death's beads and other funereal 
emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the 
rich tracery of the arches; the roses which adorned the key- 
stones have lost their leafy beauty; every thing bears marks 
of the gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has something 
:hing and pleasing in its very decay. 

The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the 
square of the cloisters ; beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in 
the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with 
a kind of dusky splendor. From between the arcades, the eye 
glanced up to a bit of blu or a passing cloud; and beheld 

the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering into the azure 
heaven. 

As I paced the cloi >metime£ contemplating this min- 

gled picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeavoring to 
decipher the inscriptions on the tombstones, which formed the 
pavement beneath my feet, my eye was attracted to three figures, 
rudely carved in relief, bu1 nearly worn away by the footsteps 
of many generations. They were the effigies of three of the 
early abbots: the epitaphs were entirely effaced; the names 
alone remained, having no doubt been renewed in later times. 
(Vitalis Abbas. L082, and Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, 
and Laurentius. Abbas. L176.) I remained some little while, 
musing over thi relics of antiquity, thus loft like 



20 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 




wrecks upon this distant shore of time, telling no tale but that 
such beings had been, and had perished ; teaching no moral but 
the futility of that pride which hopes still to exact homage in 
its ashes, and to live in an inscription. A little longer, and 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 21 

even these faint records will be obliterated, and the monument 
will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking down 
upon these gravestones, I was roused by the sound of the abbey 
clock, reverberating from buttress to buttress, and echoing among 
the cloisters. It is almost startling to hear this warning of de- 
parted time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of 
the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward toward the 
grave. I pursued my walk to an arched, door opening to the 
interior of the abbey. On entering here, the magnitude of the 
building breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with the vaults 
of the cloisters. The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered col- 
umns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing from them 
to such an amazing height; and man, wandering about their 
bases, shrunk into insignificance in comparison with his own 
handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast edifice 
produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously 
and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing the hallowed silence 
of the tomb; while every footfall whispers along the walls, and 
chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible of the 
quiet we have interrupted. 

It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon 
the soul, and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence. We 
feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the 
great men of past times, who have filled history with their deeds, 
and the earth with their renown. 

And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human 
ambition, to see how they are crowded together and jostled in 
the dust; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty 
nook, a gloomy corner, a little portion of earth, to those whom, 
when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy ; and how many shapes, 
and forms, and artifices, are devised to catch the casual notice 



22 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 




of the passenger, and save from forgetfulness, for a few short 
years, a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the world's 
thought and admiration. 

I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end 
of one of the transepts or cross-aisles of the abbey. The monu- 
ments are generally simple; for the lives of literary men afford 
no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakspeare and Addison 
have statues erected to their memories; but the greater part 
have busts, rnedallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Not- 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 23 

withstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always 
observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest about 
them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold curi- 
osity or vague admiration with which they gaze on the splendid 
monuments of the great and the heroic. They linger about 
these as about the tombs of friends and companions ; for indeed 
there is something of companionship between the author and 
the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through 
the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and 
obscure: but the intercourse between the author and his fellow- 
men is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them 
more than for himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoy- 
ments, and shut himself up from the delights of social life, that 
he might the more intimately commune with distant minds and 
distant ages. Well may the world cherish his renown ; for it 
has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but by 
the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be 
grateful to his memory ; for he has left it an inheritance, not of 
empty names and sounding actions, but whole treasures of wis- 
dom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language. 

From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll toward that part of 
the abbey which contains the sepulchres of the kings. I wan- 
dered among what once were chapels, but which are now occu- 
pied by the tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn 
I met with some illustrious name, or the cognizance of some 
powerful house renowned in history. As the eye darts into 
these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of quaint 
effigies ; some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion ; others 
stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously pressed together : 
warriors in armor, as if reposing after battle ; prelates with cro- 
siers and mitres ; and nobles in robes and coronets, lying as it 



24 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

were in state. In glancing over this scene, so strangely popu- 
lous, vet where every form is so still and silent, it seems almost 
as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city, where 
every being had been suddenly transmuted into stone. 

I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a 
knight in complete armor. A large buckler was on one arm ; 
the bauds were pressed together in supplication upon the breast: 
the face was almost covered by the morion ; the legs were 
crossed, in token of the warrior's having been engaged in the 
holy war. It was the tomb of a crusader; of one of those mili- 
tarv enthusiasts who so strangely mingled religion and romance, 
and whose exploits form the connecting link between fact and 
fiction — between the history and the fairy tale. There is some- 
thing extremely picturesque in the tombs of these adventurers, 
decorated as they are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic 
sculpture. They comport with the antiquated chapels in which 
they are generally found ; and, in considering them, the imagi- 
nation is apt to kindle with the legendary associations, the 
romantic fiction, the chivalrous pomp and pageantry, which 
poetry has spread over the wars for the sepulchre of Christ. 
They are the relics of times utterly gone by ; of beings passed 
from recollection ; of customs and manners with which ours 
have no affinity. They are like objects from some strange and 
distant land, of which we have no certain knowledge, and about 
which all our conceptions are vague and visionary. There is 
something extremely solemn and awful in those effigies on 
Gothic tombs, extended as if in the sleep of death, or in the 
supplication of the dying hour. They have an effect infinitely 
more impressive on my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, the 
overwrought conceits, and allegorical groups, which abound on 
modern monuments. I have been struck, also, with the supe- 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 25 

riority of many of the old sepulchral inscriptions. There was 

; ble way, in former time-, of saying things simply, and yet 

saying them proudly; and I do not know an epitaph that 
breathes a loftier consciousness of family worth and honorable 
lineage than one whicb affirms, of a noble house, that "all the 
brothers were brave, and all the sisters virtuous." 

In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument 
which is among the mosl renowned achievements of modern art, 
l>iii which to me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is 
the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of 
the monument is represented as throwing open its marble doors, 
and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is felling 
from his fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. 
She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives, 
with vain and frantic effort, to avert the blow. The whole is 
executed with terrible truth and spirit: we almost fancy we 
hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended 
jaws of the spectre. But why should we thus seek- to clothe 
death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round the 
tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded bv 
every thing that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the 
dead; or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place, 
not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. 

Whiles wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles, 
studying the records of the dead, the sound of busy existence 
from without occasionally reaches the ear — the rumbling of the 
passing equipage; the murmur of the multitude; or perhaps the 
light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is striking with the death- 
like repose around : and it has a strange effect upon the feelings, 
thus to hear the surges of active; life hurrying along, and beating 
against the very walls of the sepulchre. 



26 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, and from 
chapel to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; the 
distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less 
frequent; the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening 
prayers; and 1 saw at a distance the choristers, in their white 
surplices, crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood 
before the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. A iliglit 
of steps lead up to it, through a deep and gloomy but magnifi- 
cent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, 
turn heavily upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctanl to admit 
the feet of common mortals into this most gorgeous of sep- 
ulchres. 

On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture, 
and the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls 
are wrought into universal ornament, incrusted with tracery. 
and scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of saints and 
martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel, to 
nave been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft, as 
if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful 
minuteness and airy security of a cobweb. 

Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the 
Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak, though with the gro- 
tesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of 
the stalls are affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with 
their scarfs and swords; and above them are suspended their 
banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the 
splendor of gold and purple and crimson, with the cold gray 
fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum 
stands the sepulchre of its founder — his effigy, with that of his 
queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb, and the whole surround- 
ed by a superbly-wrought brazen railing. 



WESTMINSTEB A.BBEY. 27 

There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence; this strange 
mi ture of tombs and trophie ; these emblems of living and as- 
piring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dusl and 
oblivion in which, all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing 
impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness, than to 
tread the silenl and deserted scene of former throng and pageant. 
< >n looking round on the vacanl stalls of the knights and their 
esquires, and on the rows of dusty but gorgeous banners that 
once borne before them, my imagination conjured up iln- 
scene when this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of 
the land; glittering with the splendor of jewelled rank :m<l mil- 
itary array; alive with the tread of many feet and the hum of 
an admiring multitude. All had passed away; the silence of 
death had settled again upon the place, interrupted only by the 
casual chirping of birds, which had found their way into thi 
chapel, and buill their nests among its friezes and pendants — 
sure signs of solitariness and desertion. 

When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were 
those of men scattered far and wide about the world : some to 
ing upon distanl seas; 3ome under arms in distanl lands; some 
mingling in the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets; all see] 
ing to deserve one more distinction in this mansion of shadowy 
honors the melancholy reward of a monument. 

Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touch- 
ing instance of the equality of the grave; which brings down 
the oppressor to a level with the oppressed, and mingles the 
dusl of the bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulchre 
of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of her victim, the 
lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but some 
ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled 
with indignation a1 her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's 



28 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

sepulchre continually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved 
at the grave of her rival. 

A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies 
buried. The Light struggles dimly through windows darkened 
by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and 
the walls arc stained and tinted by time and weather. A mar- 
ble figure el' Mary is stretched upon the- comb, round which is 
an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem — 
the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rot 
myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the chequered 
and disastrous story of poor Mary. 

The sound of casual footsteps had censed from the abbey. 1 
could only hear, now and then, the distant, voice of the priest 
repeating the evening service, and the taint responses of the 
choir; these pa used for a time, and all was hushed. The still- 
ness, the desertion and obscurity that were gradually prevailing 
around, gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the place: 

"For in the silent grave no conversation, 

No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers, 
No careful father's counsel — nothing's heard, 
For nothing is. but all oblivion, 

Dust, and an endless darkness." 

Suddenly the notes of the deep laboring organ burst upon the 
ear, falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, 
as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume 
and grandeur x accord with this mighty building! With what 
pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their 
awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the 
silent sepulchre vocal! — And now they rise in triumph and 
acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, 
and piling sound on sound. — And now they pause, and the soft 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 



29 



voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody : they 
soar aloft, and warble along the roof, and seem to play about 
these Lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the peal- 
ing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into 
music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn 
cadences! What solemn, sweeping concords ! It grows more 
and more dense and powerful— it fills the vasl pile, and seems 
to jar the very walls— the ear is stunned— the senses are over- 
whelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee — it is rising 
from the earth to heaven — the very soul seems rapt away and 
floated upward on this swelling tide of harmony ! 

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain 
of music is apt sometimes to inspire: the shadows of evening 
were gradually thickening round me; the monuments began to 
cast deeper and deeper gloom; and the distant clock again gave 
token of the slowly-waning day. 

I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the 
flight of steps which lead into the body of the building, my eye 
was caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascend- 
ed the small staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence 
a general survey of this wilderness of tombs. The shrine is 
elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the 
sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this eminence 
the eye looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to the 
chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs ; where war- 
riors, prelates, courtiers, and statesmen, lie mouldering in their 
'•beds of darkness." Close by me stood the great chair of coro- 
nation, rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous taste of a remote 
and Gothic age. The scene seemed almost as if contrived, with 
theatrical artifice, to produce an effect upon the beholder. Here 
was a type of the beginning and the end of human pomp and 



30 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

power ; here it was literally but a step from the throne to the 
sepulchre. Would not one think that these incongruous me- 
mentos had been gathered together as a lesson to living great- 
ness ? — to show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, 
the neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive ; how 
soon that crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and 
it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and be 
trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude ! 
For, strange to tell, even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary. 
There is a shocking levity in some natures, which leads them to 
sport with awful and hallowed things; and there are base minds 
which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject hom- 
age and grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The 
coffin of Edward the Confessor has been broken open, and his 
remains despoiled of their funereal ornaments; the sceptre has 
been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, and the 
effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument 
but bears some proof how false and fugitive is the homage of 
mankind. Some are plundered ; some mutilated ; some covered 
with ribaldry and insult — all more or less outraged and dis- 
honored ! 

The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through 
the painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower 
parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twi- 
light. The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The 
effigies of the kings faded into shadows ; the marble figures of 
the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; 
the evening breeze crept, through the aisles like the cold breath 
of the grave ; and even the distant footfall of a verger, traver- 
sing the Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in its 
sound. I slowlv retraced mv .morning's walk, and, as I passed 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 31 

out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring 
noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. 

I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the 
objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already 
fallen into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, 
trophies, had all become confounded in my recollection, though 
I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, 
thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury 
of humiliation ; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the empti- 
ness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion ! It is, indeed, 
the empire of Death ; his great shadowy palace, where he sits in 
state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust 
and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a 
boast, after all, is the immortality of a name ! Time is ever 
silently turning over his pages ; we are too much engrossed by 
the story of the present, to think of the characters and anecdotes 
that gave interest to the past ; and each age is a volume thrown 
aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the 
hero of yesterday out of our recollection ; and will', in turn, be 
supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. "Our fathers," says 
Sir Thomas Brown, " find their graves in our short memories, 
and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors." 
History fades into fable ; fact becomes clouded with doubt and 
controversy ; the inscription moulders from the tablet ; the 
statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids — 
what are they but heaps of sand ; and their epitaphs, but char- 
acters written in the dust ? What is the security of a tomb, or 
the perpetuity of an embalmment ? The remains of Alexander 
the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty sar- 
cophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum. "The Egyp- 
tian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice 



32 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

now consumeth : Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold: 
for balsams."* 

What, then, is to insure this pile, which now towers above 
me, from sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time 
must come when its gilded vaults, which now spring so loftily, 
shall lie in rubbish beneath the feet; when, instead of the sound 
of melody and praise, the wind shall whistle through the broken 
arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered tower — when the 
garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of 
death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column; and the fox- 
glove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mock- 
ery of the dead. Thus man passes away ; his name perishes 
from record and recollection ; his history is as a tale that is 
told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.f 

* Sir T. Brown. f For notes on Westminster Abbey, see Appendix. 




LITTLE BRITAIN. 



•• What I * rite is most (rue .... I have a whole booke of cases lying Dy 
me wh ich if 1 should sette foorth, some grave auntients (within the hearing of 
B( >w 1 »ell) would he out of charity with me." Xashe. 



Q 



N the centre of the great city of 
London lies a small neighbor- 
hood, consisting of a cluster 
of narrow streets and courts, 
of very venerable and debil- 
f. itatecl houses, which goes by 
| the name of Little Britain. 
| Christ Church School and St. 
I Bartholomew's Hospital bound 
it on the west; Smithneld and 
I Long Lane on the north ; Al- 
V dersgate Street, like an arm of 
S the sea, divides it from the 
JJ eastern part of the city; whilst 
§ the yawning gulf of Bull-and- 
Mouth Street separates it from 
Butcher Lane, and the regions 
of Newgate. Over this little territory, thus bounded and desig- 
nated, the great dome of St. Paul's, swelling above the interven- 
ing houses of Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, and Ave Maria 
Lane, looks down with an air of motherly protection. 




a^/f^ 



34 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

This quarter derives its appellation from having been, in 
ancient times, the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. As Lon- 
don increased, however, rank and fashion rolled off to the west, 
and trade, creeping on at their heels, took possession of their de- 
serted abodes. For some time Little Britain became the great 
mart of learning, and was peopled by the busy and prolific race 
of booksellers ; these also gradually deserted it, and, emigrating 
beyond the great strait of Newgate Street, settled down in 
Paternoster Eow and St. Paul's Churchyard, where they con- 
tinue to increase and multiply even at the present day. 

But though thus fallen into decline, Little Britain still bears 
traces of its former splendor. There are several houses ready 
to tumble down, the fronts of which are magnificently enriched 
with old oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts, 
and fishes; and fruits and flowers which it would perplex a nat- 
uralist to classify. There are also, in Aldersgate Street, certain 
remains of what were once spacious and lordly family mansions. 
but which have in latter days been subdivided into several 
tenements. Here may often be found the family of a petty 
tradesman, with its trumpery furniture, burrowing among the 
relics of antiquated finery, in great rambling, time-stained apart- 
ments', with fretted ceilings, gilded cornices, and enormous mar- 
ble fireplaces. The lanes and courts also contain many smaller 
houses, not on so grand a scale, but, like your small ancient 
gentry, sturdily maintaining their claims to equal antiquity. 
These have their gable ends to the street; great bow windows, 
with diamond panes set in lead, grotesque carvings, and low 
arched door- ways.* 

* It is evident that the author of this interesting communication lias included, in 
his general title of Little Britain, many of those little lanes and courts that belong 
immediately to Cloth Fair. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 35 

In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have I passed 
several quiet years of existence, comfortably lodged in the 
second floor of one of the smallest but oldest edifices. My sit- 
ting-room is an old wainscoted chamber, with small panels, and 
set off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. I have a par- 
ticular respect for three or four high-backed claw-footed chairs, 
covered with tarnished brocade, which bear the marks of having 
seen better days, and have doubtless figured in some of the old 
palaces of Little Britain. They seem to me to keep together, 
and to look down with sovereign contempt upon their leathern- 
bottomed neighbors; as I have seen decayed gentiy carry a 
high head among the plebeian society with which they were 
reduced to associate. The whole front of my sitting-room is 
taken up with a bow window; on the panes of which are re- 
corded the names of previous occupants for many generations, 
mingled with scraps of very indifferent gentleman-like poetry, 
written in characters which I can scarcely decipher, and which 
extol the charms of many a beauty of Little Britain, who has 
long, long since bloomed, faded, and passed away. As I am an 
idle personage, with no apparent occupation, and pay my bill 
regularly every week, I am looked upon as the only indepen- 
dent gentleman of the neighborhood; and, being curious to learn 
the internal state of a community so apparently shut up within 
itself, I have managed to work my way into all the concerns 
and secrets of the place. 

Little Britain may truly be called the heart's core of the city; 
the strong-hold of true John Bullism. It is a fragment of Lon- 
don as it was in its better days, with its antiquated folks and 
fashions. Here flourish in great preservation many of the holi- 
day games and customs of yore. The inhabitants most reli- 
giously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, hot-cross-buns on 



36 THE SKETCH BOOK'. ' 

Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas ; they send love- 
letters on Valentine's Day, burn the pope on the fifth of No- 
vember, and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at Christmas. 
Eoast beef and plum-pudding are also held in superstitious ven- 
eration, and port and sherry maintain their grounds as the only 
true English wines; all others being considered vile outlandish 
beverages. 

Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which 
its inhabitants consider the wonders of the world; such as the 
great bell of St. Paul's, which sours all the beer when it tolls; 
the figures that strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock ; the 
Monument; the lions in the Tower; and the wooden giants in 
Guildhall. They still believe in dreams and fortune-telling, 
and an old woman that lives in Bull-and-Mouth Street makes a 
tolerable subsistence by detecting stolen goods, and promising 
the girls good husbands. They are apt to be rendered uncom- 
fortable by comets and eclipses; and if a dog howls dolefully at 
night, it is looked upon as a sure sign of a death in the place. 
There are even many ghost stories current, particularly concern- 
ing the old mansion-houses; in several of which it is said 
strange sights are sometimes seen. Lords and ladies — the former 
in full-bottomed wigs, hanging sleeves, and swords ; the latter in 
lappets, stays, hoops, and brocade, — have been seen walking up 
and down the great waste chambers, on moonlight nights; and 
are supposed to be the shades of the ancient proprietors in their 
court- dresses. x 

Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. One of 
the most important of the former is a tall, dry old gentleman, 
of the name of Skryme, who keeps a small apothecary's shop. 
He has a cadaverous countenance, full of cavities and projec- 
tions ; with a brown circle round each eye, like a pair of horn 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 



37 



spectacles. He is much thought of by the old women, who 
consider him as a kind of conjurer, because he has two or three 
stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop, and several snakes in 
bottles. He is a great reader of almanacs and newspapers, and 
is much given to pore over alarming accounts of plots, conspira- 
cies, fires, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; which last 
phenomena he considers as signs of the times. He has always 
some dismal tale of the kind to deal out to his customers, with 
iIk mi- doses; and thus at the same time puts both soul and body 
into an uproar. He is a great believer in omens and predic- 
tions; and has the prophecies of Eobert Nixon and Mother 
Shipton by heart. No man can make so much out of an 
eclipse, or even an unusually dark day; and he shook the tail 
of the last comet over the heads of his customers and disciples 
until they were nearly frightened out of their wits. He lias 
lately got hold of a popular legend or prophecy, on which he 
has been unusually eloquent. There has been a saying current 
among the ancient sibyls, who treasure up these things, that 
when the grasshopper on the top of the Exchange shook hands 
witli the dragon on the top of Bow Church steeple, fearful 
events would take place. This strange conjunction, it seems, 
has as strangely come to pass. The same architect has been 
engaged lately on the repairs of the cupola of the Exchange, 
and the steeple of Bow Church; and, fearful to relate, the dra- 
gon and the grasshopper actually lie cheek by jole, in the yard 
of his workshop. 

" Others," as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say, " may go 
star-gazing, and look for conjunctions in the heavens, but here 
is a conjunction on the earth, near at home, and under our own 
eyes, which surpasses all the signs and calculations of astrol- 
ogers."' Since these portentous weather-cocks have thus laid 



38 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

their heads together, wonderful events had already occurred. 
The good old king, notwithstanding that he had lived eighty- 
two years, had all at once given Tip the ghost; another king 
had mounted the throne; a royal duke had died suddenly — 
another, in France, had been murdered; there had been radical 
meetings in all parts of the kingdom; the bloody scenes at Man- 
chester; the great plot in Cato Street; — and, above all, the 
queen had returned to England! All these sinister events are 
recounted by Mr. Skryme, with a mysterious look, and a dismal 
shake of the head; and being taken with his drugs, and asso- 
ciated in the minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters, 
bottled serpents, and his own visage, which is a title-page of 
tribulation, they have spread great gloom through the minds 
of the people of Little Britain. They shake their heads when- 
ever they go by Bow Church, and observe, that they never 
expected any good to come of taking down that steeple, which 
in old times told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of 
Whittington and his Cat bears witness. 

The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial cheese- 
monger, who lives in a fragment of one of the old family man- 
sions, and is as magnificently lodged as a round-bellied mite in 
the midst of one of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a man of 
no little standing and importance; and his renown extends 
through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even unto Alder- 
manbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs of state, 
having read the Sunday papers for the last half century, togeth- 
er with the Gentleman's Magazine, Rapin's History of England, 
and the Naval Chronicle. His head is stored with invaluable 
maxims which have borne the test of time and use for centuries. 
It is his firm opinion that "it is a moral impossible," so long as 
England is- true to herself, that any thing can shake her: and 



LITTLE BEITAIN. 39 

he has much to say on the subject of the national debt; which, 
somehow or other, he proves to be a great national bulwark 
mid blessing. lie passed the greater part of his life in the pur- 
lieus of Little Britain, until of late years, when, having become 
rich, and grown into the dignity of a Sunday cane, he begins 
to take his pleasure and see the world. He has therefore made 
several excursions to Eampstead, Highgate, and other neighbor- 
ing towns, where he has passed whole afternoons in looking 
back upon the metropolis through a telescope, and endeavoring 
to descry the steeple of St. Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coach- 
man of Bull-and-Mouth Street but touches his hat as he passes; 
and he is considered quite a patron at the coach-office of the 
Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's Churchyard. His family have 
been very urgent for him to make an expedition to Margate, 
but he has great doubts of those new gimcracks, the steamboats, 
and indeed thinks himself too advanced in life to undertake sen- 
voyages. 

Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions, and 
party spirit ran very high atone time in consequence of two 
rival "Burial Societies" being set up in the place. One held 
its meeting at the Swan and Horse Shoe, and was patronized by 
the cheesemonger; the other at the Cock and Crown, under the 
auspices of the apothecary: it is needless to say that the latter 
was the most flourishing. I have passed an evening or two at 
each, and have acquired much valuable information as to the 
best mode of being buried, the comparative merits of church- 
yards, together with divers hints on the subject of patent-iron 
coffins. I have heard the question discussed in all its bearings 
as to the legality of prohibiting the latter on account of their 
durability. The tends occasioned by these societies have hap- 
pily died of late; but they were for a long time prevailing 
42 



40 THE SKETCH BOOK 

themes of controversy, the people of Little Britain being ex- 
tremely solicitous of funereal honors and of lying comfortably 
in their graves. 

Besides these two funeral societies there is a third of quite a 
different cast, which tends to throw the sunshine of good humor 
over the whole neighborhood. It meets once a week at a little 
old-fashioned house, kept by a jolly publican of the name of 
Wagstaff, and bearing for insignia a resplendent half-moon, with 
a most seductive bunch of grapes. The old edifice is covered 
with inscriptions to catch the eye of the thirsty wayfarer; such 
as " Truman, Hanbury, and Co.'s Entire," "Wine, Bum, and 
Brandy Vaults," ''Old Tom, Rum and Compounds, etc." This 
indeed has been a temple of Bacchus and Momus from time im- 
memorial. It lias always been in the family of the Wagstaffs, 
so that its history is tolerably preserved by the present land- 
lord. It was much frequented by the gallants and cavalieros 
of the reign of Elizabeth, and was looked into now and then by 
the wits of Charles the Second's day. But what Wagstaff prin- 
cipally prides himself upon is, that Henry the Eighth in one of 
his nocturnal rambles, broke the head of one of his ancestors 
with his famous walking-staff. This, however, is considered as 
rather a dubious and vainglorious boast of the landlord. 

The club which now holds its weekly sessions here goes by 
the name of "The Roaring Lads of Little Britain." They 
abound in old catches, glees, and choice stories, that are tradi- 
tional in the place, and not to be met with in any other part of 
the metropolis. There is a mad-cap undertaker who is inimita- 
ble at a merry song; but the life of the club, and indeed the 
prime wit of. Little Britain, is bully Wagstaff himself. His 
ancestors were all wags before him, and he has inherited with 
the inn a large stock of songs and jokes, which go with it from 



LITTLE BEITAIN. 



41 



generation to generation as heir-looms. He is a dapper little 
follow, with bandy legs and pot belly, a red faee, with a moist 
merry eye, and a little shock of gray hair behind. At the 
opening of every clnb-night he is called in to sing his " Confes- 
sion of Faith," which is the famous old drinking trowl from 
Crammer Gurton's Needle. He sings it, to be sure, with many 
variations, as he received it from his father's lips; for it has 
been a standing favorite at the Half- Moon and Bunch of Grapes 
ever since it was written : nay, he affirms that his predecessors 
have often had the honor of singing it before the nobility and 
gentry at Christmas mummeries, when Little Britain was in all 
its glory.* 

* As mine host of the Half- Moon's " Confession of Faith" may not be familiar to 
the majority of readers, and as it is a specimen of the current songs of Little Britain. 
I subjoin it in its original orthography. I would observe, that the whole club 
always join in the chorus with a fearful thumping on the table and clattering of 
pewter pots. 




u I cannot eate but lytle meate, 

My stomacke is not good, 
But sure I thinke that I can drinke 

With him that weares a hood. 
Though I go bare, take ye no care, 

I nothing am a colde. 
I stuff my skyn so full within, 

Of joly good ale and olde. 



42 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



It would do one's heart good to hear, on a club-night, the 
shouts of merriment, the snatches of song, and now and then 
the choral bursts of half a dozen discordant voices, which issue 

Chorus. — Backe and syde go bare, go bare. 
Booth foote and hand go colde, 
But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe 
Whether it be new or olde. 



•■ I have no rost, but a nut brawne toste, 
And a crab laid in the f3 T re; 
A little breade shall do me steade, 

Much breade I not desyre. 
Xo frost nor snow, nor winde, I trowe, 

Can hurte mee, if I wolde, 
I am so wrapt and throwly lapt 
Of joly good ale and olde. 
Chora*. — Backe and syde go bare, go bare. etc. 

•• And Tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe, 
Loveth well good ale to seeke, 
Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may see, 

The teares run downe her cheeke. 
Then doth she trowle to me the bowle, 

Even as a manlt-worme sholde, 
And saytli, sweete harte, I took my parte 
Of this joly good ale and olde. 
Chorus. — Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc. 

"Xow let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke, 
Even as goode fellowes sholde doe, 
They shall not mysse to have the blisse, 

Good ale doth bring men to ; 
And all poore sonles that have scowred bowles, 
Or have them lustily trolde, 
v God save the lyves of them and their wives, 
Whether they be yonge or olde. 
Chorus. — Backe and syde go bare, go bare," etc. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 



43 



from this jovial mansion. At such times the street is lined 
with listeners, who enjoy a delight equal to that of gazing into 
a confectioner's window, or snuffing up the steams of a cook- 
shop. 

There are two annual events which produce great stir and 
sensation in Little Britain ; these are St. Bartholomew's fair, 
and the Lord Mayor's day. During the time of the fair, which 
is held in the adjoining regions of Smithfield, there is nothing 
going on but gossiping and gadding about. The late quiet 
streets of Little Britain are overrun with an irruption of strange 
figures and faces; every tavern is a scene of rout and revel. 
The fiddle and the song are heard from the tap-room, morning, 
noon, and night; and at each window may be seen some group 
of boon companions, with half-shut eyes, hats on one side, pipe 
in mouth, and tankard in hand, fondling, and prosing, and sing- 
ing maudlin songs over their liquor. Even the sober decorum 
of private families, which I must say is rigidly kept up at other 
times among my neighbors, is no proof against this Saturnalia. 
There is no such thing as keeping maid-servants within doors. 
Their brains are absolutely set madding with Punch and the 
Puppet Show; the Flying Horses; Signior Polito; the Fire- 
Eater; the celebrated Mr. Paap; and the Irish Giant. The 
children too lavish all their holiday money in toys and gilt gin- 
gerbread, and fill the house with the Lilliputian din of drums, 
trumpets, and penny whistles. 

But the Lord Mayor's day is the great anniversary. The 
I i< »r< I Mayor is looked up to by the inhabitants of Little Britain 
as the greatest potentate upon earth; his gilt coach with six 
horses as the summit of human splendor; and his procession, 
with all the Sheriffs and Aldermen in his train, as the grandest 
of earthly pageants. How they exult in the idea, that the King 



44 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



himself dare not enter the city without first knocking at the 
gate of Temple Bar, and asking permission of the Lord Mayor: 
for if he did, heaven and earth ! there is no knowing what 
might be the consequence. The man in armor who rides before 
the Lord Mayor, and is the city champion, has orders to cut 
down everybody that offends against the dignity of the city : 
and then there is the little man with a velvet porringer on 
his head, who sits at the window of the state coach, and holds 
the city sword, as long as a pike-staff — Odd's blood! If he 
once draws that sword, Majesty itself is not safe! 

Under the protection of this mighty potentate, therefore, the 
good people of Little Britain sleep in peace. Temple Bar is an 
effectual barrier against all interior foes; and as to foreign in- 
vasion, the Lord Mayor has but to throw himself into the 
Tower, call in the train-bands, and put the standing army of 
Beef-eaters under arms, and he may bid defiance to the world! 

Thus wrapped up in its own concerns, its own habits, and its 
own opinions. Little Britain has long flourished as a sound 
heart to this great fungous metropolis. I have pleased myself 
with considering it as a chosen spot, where the principles of 
sturdy John Bullism were garnered up, like seed corn, to renew 
the national character, when it had run to waste and degeneracy. 
I have rejoiced also in the general spirit of harmony that pre- 
vailed throughout it; for though there might now and then be 
a few clashes of opinion between the adherents of the cheese- 
monger and the apothecary, and an occasional feud between the 
burial societies, yet these were but transient clouds, and soon 
passed away. The neighbors met with good-will, parted with 
a shake of the hand, and never abused each other except behind 
their backs. 

I could give rare descriptions of snug junketing parties at 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 45 

which I have been present; where we played at All-Fours, 
Pope-Joan, Toin-come-tickle-me, and other choice old panes; 
and where we sometimes had a good old English country dance 
to the tune of Sir Eoger de Coverley. Once a year also the 
neighbors would gather together, and go on a gipsy party to 
Epping Forest. It would have done any man's heart good to 
see the merriment that took place here as we banqueted on the 
grass under the trees. How we made the woods ring with 
bursts of laughter at the songs of little Wag-staff and the merry 
undertaker! After dinner, too, the young folks would play at 
blind-man's-buff and hide-and-seek; and it was amusing to see 
them tangled among the briers, and to hear a fine romping girl 
now and then squeak from among the bushes. The elder folks 
would gather round the cheesemonger and the apothecary, to 
hear them talk politics ; for they generally brought out a news- 
paper in their pockets, to pass away time in the country. They 
would now and then, to be sure, get a little warm in argument; 
but their disputes were alwaj^s adjusted by reference to a 
worthy old umbrella-maker in a double chin, who, never exact- 
ly comprehending the subject, managed somehow or other to 
decide in favor of both parties. 

All empires, however, says some philosopher or historian, are 
doomed to changes and revolutions. Luxury and innovation 
creep in ; factions arise ; and families now and then spring up, 
whose ambition and intrigues throw the whole system into 
confusion. Thus in latter days has the tranquillity of Little 
Britain been grievously disturbed, and its golden simplicity of 
manners threatened with total subversion, by the aspiring family 
of a retired butcher. 

The family of the Lambs had long been among the most 
thriving and popular in the neighborhood: the Miss Lambs 



46 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 




were the belles of Little Britain, and everybody was pleased 
when Old Lamb had made money enough to shut ujd shop, and 
put his name' on a brass plate on his door. In an evil hour, how- 
ever, one of the Miss Lambs had the honor of being a lady in 
attendance on the Lady Mayoress, at her grand annual ball, on 
which .occasion she wore three towering ostrich feathers on her 
head. The family never got over it; they were immediately 
smitten with a passion for high life ; set up a one-horse carriage 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 



47 



put a bit of gold lace round the errand boy's hat, and have been 
the talk and detestation of the whole neighborhood ever since. 
They could no longer be induced to play at Pope-Joan or blind- 
man's-buff; they could endure no dances but quadrilles, which 
nobody had ever heard of in Little Britain ; and they took to 
reading novels, talking bad French, and playing upon the 
piano. Their brother, too, who had been articled to an attor- 
ney, set up for a dandy and a critic, characters hitherto un- 
known in these parts ; and he confounded the worthy folks 
exceedingly by talking about Kean, the opera, and the Edin- 
burgh Keview. 

What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand ball, to which 
they neglected to invite any of their old neighbors; but they 
had a great deal of genteel company from Theobald's Road, 
Red-Lion Square, and other parts towards the west. There 
were several beaux of their brother's acquaintance from Grays 
Inn Lane and Hatton Garden ; and not less than three Alder- 
men's ladies with their daughters. This was not to be forgotten 
or forgiven. All Little Britain was in an uproar with the 
smacking of whips, the lashing of miserable horses, and the rat- 
tlingand the jingling of hackney coaches. The gossips of the 
neighborhood might be seen popping their night-caps out at 
every window, watching the crazy vehicles rumble by ; and 
there was a knot of virulent old cronies, that kept a look-out 
from a house just opposite the retired butcher's, and scanned 
and criticised every one that knocked at the door. 

This dance was a cause of almost open war, and the whole 
neighborhood declared they would have nothing more to say 
to the Lambs. It is true that Mrs. Lamb, when she had no 
engagements with her quality acquaintance, would give little 
humdrum tea junketings to some of her old cronies, "quite," as 



48 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

she would say, "in a friendly way;" and it is equally true that 
her invitations were always accepted, in spite of all previous 
vows to the contrary. Nay, the good ladies would sit and be 
delighted with the music of the Miss Lambs, who would con- 
descend to strum an Irish melody for them on the piano; and 
they would listen with wonderful interest to Mrs. Lamb's 
anecdotes of Alderman Plunket's family, of Portsokenward. 
and the Miss Timberlakes, the rich heiresses of Crutched-Frhirs; 
but then they relieved their consciences, and averted the re- 
proaches of their confederates, by canvassing at the next gossip- 
ing convocation every thing that had passed, and pulling the 
Lambs and their rout all to pieces. 

The only one of the family that could not be made fashiona- 
ble was the retired butcher himself. Honest Lamb, in spite of 
the meekness of his name, was a rough, hearty old fellow, with 
the voice of a lion, a head of black hair like a shoe brush, and 
a broad lace mottled like his own beef. It was in vain that 
the daughters always spoke of him as "the old gentleman.'" 
addressed him as "papa," in tones of infinite softness, and 
endeavored to coax him into a dressing-gown and slippers, and 
other gentlemanly habit-. Do what they might, there was 
no keeping down tin 1 butcher. His sturdy nature would break 
through all their glozings. He had a hearty vulgar good-humor 
that was irrepressible. His very jokes made his sensitive 
daughters shudder; and he persisted in wearing his blue-cotton 
coat of a, morning, dining at two o'clock, and having a "bit ol' 
sausage with his tea." 

He was doomed, however, to share the unpopularity of his 
family.' 11.' found his old comrades gradually growing cold 
and civil to him; no longer laughing at his jokes; and now 
and then throwing out a fling at "some people," and a hint 



LITTLE BEITAIN. 49 

about "quality binding." This both nettled and perplexed 
the honest butcher; and his wife and daughters, with the con- 
summate policy of the shrewder sex, taking advantage of the 
circumstance, at length jjrevailed upon him to give up his after- 
noon's pipe and tankard at Wagstaff's; to sit after dinner by 
himself, and take his pint of port — a liquor he detested — and to 
nod in his chair in solitary and dismal gentility. 

The Miss Lambs might now be seen flaunting along the 
streets in French bonnets, with unknown beaux; and talking 
and laughing so loud that it distressed the nerves of every good 
Lady within hearing. They even went so far as to attempt 
patronage, and actually induced a French dancing-master to set 
up in the neighborhood; but the worthy folks of Little Britain 
took fire at it, and did so persecute the poor Gaul, that he was 
fain to pack up fiddle and dancing-pumps, and decamp with 
such precipitation, that he absolutely forgot to pay for his 
lodgings. 

I had flattered myself, at first, with the idea that all this fiery 
indignation on the part of the community was merely the over- 
flowing of their zeal for good old English manners, and their 
horror of innovation ; and I applauded the silent contempt they 
were so vociferous in expressing, for upstart pride, French 
fashions, and the Miss Lambs. But I grieve to say that I soon 
perceived the infection had taken hold ; and that my neighbors, 
a tier condemning, were beginning to follow their example. I 
overheard my landlady importuning her husband to let their 
( laughters have one quarter at French and music, and that they 
might take a few lessons in quadrille. I even saw, in the 
course of a few Sundays, no less than five French bonnets, 
precisely like those of the Miss Lambs, parading about Little 
Britain. 



50 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



I still had my hopes that all this folly would gradually die 
away; that the Lambs might move out of the neighborhood; 
might die, or might run away with attorneys' apprentices; 
and that quiet and simplicity might be again restored to the 
community. But unluckily a rival power arose. An opulent 
oilman died, and left a widow with a large jointure and a 
family of buxom daughters. The young ladies had long been 
repining in secret at the parsimony of a prudent father, which 
kept down all their elegant aspirings. Their ambition, being 
now no longer restrained, broke out into a blaze, and they 
openly took the field against the family of the butcher. It is 
true that the Lambs, having had the first start, had naturally 
an advantage of them in the fashionable career. They could 
speak a little bad French, play the piano, dance quadrilles, and 
had formed high acquaintances; but the Trotters were not to 
be distanced. When the Lambs appeared with two feathers in 
their hats, the Miss Trotters mounted four, and of twice as fine 
colors. If the Lambs gave a dance, the Trotters were sure not to 
be behindhand : and though they might not boast of as good com- 
pany, yet they had double the number, and were twice as merry. 

The whole community has at length divided itself into fash- 
ionable factions, under the banners of these two families. The 
old games of Pope-Joan and Tom-come-tickle-me are entirely 
discarded ; there is no such thing as getting up an honest coun- 
try dance ; and on my attempting to kiss a young lady under 
the mistletoe last Christmas, I was indignantly repulsed; the 
Miss Lambs having pronounced it "shocking vulgar." Bitter 
rivalry has also broken out as to the most fashionable part of 
Little Britain ; the Lambs standing up for the dignity of Cross- 
Keys Square, and the Trotters for the vicinity of St. Bartholo- 
mew's. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 51 

Thus is this little territory torn by factions and internal 
dissensions, like the great empire whose name it bears; and 
what will be the result would puzzle the apothecary himself, 
with jill his talent at prognostics, to determine; though I appre- 
hend that it will terminate in the total downfall of genuine 
John Bullism. 

The immediate effects are extremely unpleasant to me. 
Being a single man, and, as I observed before, rather an idle, 
good-for-nothing personage, I have been considered the only 
gentleman by profession in the place. I stand therefore in 
high favor with both parties, and have to hear all their cabinet 
councils and mutual backbitings. As I am too civil not to 
agree with the ladies on all occasions, I have committed myself 
most horribly with both parties, by abusing their opponents. 
I might manage to reconcile this to my conscience, which is 
a truly accommodating one, but I cannot to my apprehension— 
if the Lambs and Trotters ever come to a reconciliation, and 
compare notes, I am ruined ! 

I have determined, therefore, to beat a retreat in time, and 
;ini actually looking out for some other nest in this great city, 
where old English manners are still kept up; where French 
is neither eaten, drunk, danced, nor spoken; and where there 
are no fashionable families of retired tradesmen. This found; 
I will, like a veteran rat, hasten away before I have an old 
house about my ears ; bid a long, though a sorrowful adieu to 
my present abode, and leave the rival factions of the Lambs 
and the Trotters to divide the distracted empire of Little 
Britain. 




b"Y : -< Hfi 




STEATFOKD-ON-AYON. 

'Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream 
Of things more than mortal sweet Shakspeare would dream; 
The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, 
For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head." 



GrAEEICK. 



TO a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which 
he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of 
something like independence and territorial consequence, when, 
after a weary day's travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his 
feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. Let 
the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so 
long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the 
time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The arm-chair 
is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlor, some 
twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of 



53 



54 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life; 
it is a sunny moment, gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day: 
and he who has advanced some way on the pilgrimage of exist- 
ence, knows the importance of husbanding even morsels and 
moments of enjoyment. " Shall I not take mine ease in mine 
inn?" thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in my 
elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlor 
of the Eed Horse, at Stratford-on-Avon. 

The words of sweet Shakspeare were just passing through 
my mind as the clock struck midnight from the tower of the 
church in which he lies buried. There was a gentle tap at the 
door, and a pretty chambermaid, putting in her smiling face, 
inquired, with a hesitating air, whether I had rung. I under- 
stood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. My dream 
of absolute dominion was at an end* so abdicating my throne, 
like a prudent potentate, to avoid hieing deposed, and putting 
the ''Stratford Guide-Book" under my arm, as a pillow com- 
panion, 1 went to bed, and dreamt all night of Shakspeare, the 
jubilee, and David Garrick. 

The next morning was one of those quickening mornings 
which we sometimes have in early spring; for it was about the 
middle of March. The chills of a long winter had suddenly 
given way; the north wind had spent its last gasp; and a mild 
air came stealing from the west, breathing the breath of life 
into nature, and wooing every bud and flower to burst forth 
into fragrance and beauty. 

I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first 
visit was to the house where Shakspeare was born, and where, 
according to tradition, he was brought up to his lather's craft 
of wool-combing. It is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood 
and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to 



STRATFORD-ON AVON. 



55 




delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of its 
squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in 
every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and condi- 
tions, from the prince to the peasant ; and present a simple, but 
striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of 
mankind to the great poet of nature. 



56 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a frosty red 
face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished with 
artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly 
dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the 
relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. 
There was the shattered stock of the very match-lock with 
which Shakspeare shot the deer, on his j:>oaching exploits. 
There, too, was his tobacco-box ; which proves that he was a 
rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh: the sword also with which 
he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar 
Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb! There 
was an ample supply also of Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, which 
seems to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as 
the wood of the true cross ; of which there is enough extant to 
build a ship of the line. 

The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shaks- 
peare's chair. It stands in the chimney-nook of a small gloomy 
chamber, just behind what was his father's shop. Here he may 
many a time have sat when a boy, watching the slowly revolv- 
ing spit with all the longing of an urchin ; or of an evening, 
listening to the cronies and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth 
churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome 
times of England. In this chair it is the custom of every one 
that visits the house to sit: whether this be done with the hope 
of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard I am at a loss to 
say, I merely mention the fact; and mine hostess privately 
assured me, that, though built of solid oak, such was the fervent 
zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be new bottomed at least 
once in -three years. It is worthy of notice also, in the history 
of this extraordinary chair, that it partakes something of the 
volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or the flying chair 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON 



57 



of the Arabian enchanter; for though sold some few years since 
to a northern princess, yet, strange to tell, it has found its way 
back again to the old chimney corner. 

I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am ever 
willing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs 
ii' »ihing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and 
local anecdotes of goblins and great men; and would advise all 
travellers who travel for their gratification to be the same. 
What is it to us, whether these stories be true or false, so long 
as we can persuade ourselves into the belief of them, and enjoy 
all the charm of the reality? There is nothing like resolute 
good-humored credulity in these matters ; and on this occasion 
I went even so far as willingly to believe the claims of mine 
hostess to a lineal descent from the poet, when, luckily, for mv 
faith, she put into my hands a play of her own composition, 
which set all belief in her consanguinity at defiance. 

From the birth-place of Shakspeare a few paces brought me 
to his grave. He lies buried in the chancel of the parish 
church, a large and venerable pile, mouldering with age, but 
richly ornamented. It stands on the banks of the Avon, on an 
embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the 
suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired: the 
river runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and the 
elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into its 
clear bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are 
curiously interlaced, so as to form in summer an arched way of 
foliage, leads up from the gate of the yard to the church porch. 
The graves are overgrown with grass; the gray tombstones, 
some of them nearly sunk into the earth, are half covered with 
moss, which has likewise tinted the reverend old buildino- 
Small birds have built their nests among the cornices and 



58 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



fissures of the walls, and keep up a continual flutter and chirp- 
ing; and rooks are sailing and cawing about its lofty gray 
spire. 

In the course of my rambles I met with the gray-headed 
sexton, Edmonds, and accompanied him home to get the key 
of the church. He had lived in Stratford, man and boy, for 
eighty years, and seemed still to consider himself a vigorous 
man, with the trivial exception that he had nearly lost the use 
of his legs for a few years past. His dwelling was a cottage, 
looking out upon the Avon and its bordering meadows; and 
was a picture of that neatness, order, and comfort, which per- 
vade the humblest dwellings in this country. A low white- 
washed room, with a stone floor carefully scrubbed, served for 
parlor, kitchen, and hall. Eows of pewter and earthen dishes 
glittered along the dresser. On an old oaken table, well rubbed 
and polished, lay the family Bible and Prayer Book, and the 
drawer contained the family library, composed of about half a 
score of well-thumbed volumes. An ancient clock, that im- 
portant article of cottage furniture, ticked on the opposite side 
of the room; with a bright warming-pan hanging on one side 
of it, and the old man's horn-handled Sunday cane on the other. 
The fireplace, as usual, was wide and deep enough to admit a 
gossip knot within its jambs. In one corner sat the old man's 
granddaughter sewing, a pretty blue-eyed girl, — and in the oppo- 
site corner was a superannuated crony, whom he addressed by 
the name of John Ange, and who, I found, had been his compan- 
ion from childhood. They had played together in infancy; they 
had worked together in manhood; they were now tottering 
about 'and gossiping away the evening of life ; and in a short 
time they will probably be buried together in the neighboring 
churchyard. It is not often that we see two streams of exist- 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 



59 




ence running thus evenly and tranquilly side by side ; it is only 
in such quiet " bosom scenes" of life that they are to be met 
with. 

I had hoped to gather some traditionary anecdotes of the 



60 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



bard from these ancient chroniclers ; but they had nothing new 
to impart. The long interval during which Shakspeare's 
writings lay in comparative neglect has spread its shadow over 
his history ; and it is his good or evil lot that scarcely any thing 
remains to his biographers but a scanty handful of conjectures. 

The sexton and his companion had been employed as car- 
penters on the preparations for the celebrated Stratford jubilee, 
and they remembered Garrick, the prime mover of the fete, who 
superintended the arrangements, and. who, according to the 
sexton, was "a short punch man, very lively and bustling." 
John Ange had assisted also in cutting down Shakspeare's mul- 
berry-tree, of which he had a morsel in his pocket for sale: no 
don l>t a sovereign quickener of literary conception. 

I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights speak very 
dubiously of the eloquent dame who shows the Shakspeare 
house, John Ange shook his head when I mentioned her 
valuable collection of relics, particularly her remains of the 
mulberry -tree ; and the old sexton even expressed a doubt as to 
Shakspeare having been born in her house. I soon discovered 
that he looked upon her mansion with an evil eye, as a rival to 
the poet's tomb; the latter having comparatively but few visit- 
ors. Thus it is that historians differ at the very outset, and 
mere pebbles make the stream of truth diverge into different 
channels even at the fountain-head. 

"We approached the church through the avenue of limes, and 
entered by a Gothic porch, highly ornamented, with carved 
doors of massive oak. The interior is spacious, and the archi- 
tecture and embellishments superior to those of most country 
churches. There are several ancient monuments of nobility 
and gentry,, over some of which hang funeral escutcheons, ana 
banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. The torn!) of 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 



61 







Shakspeare is in the chancel. The place is solemn and sepul- 
chral. Tall elms wave before the pointed windows, and the 
Avon, which runs at a short distance from the walls, keeps up 
a low. perpetual murmur. A flat stone marks the spot where 



g2 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

the bard is buried. There are four lines inscribed on it, said to 
have been written by himself, and which have in them some- 
thing extremely awful. If they are indeed his own, they show 
that solicitude about the quiet of the grave, which seems natural 
to fine sensibilities and thoughtful minds. 

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare 
To dip; the dust enclosed here. 
Blessed be he that spares these stones, 
And curst be he that moves my bones." 

Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of 
Shakspeare, put up shortly after his death, and considered as a 
resemblance. The aspect is pleasant and serene, with a finely 
arched forehead ; and I thought I could read in it clear indica- 
tions of that cheerful, social disposition, by which he was as 
much characterized among his contemporaries as by the vast- 
ness of his genius. The inscription mentions his age at the 
time of his decease — fifty-three years; an untimely death for 
the world: for what fruit might not have been expected from 
the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was from the 
stormy vicissitudes of life, and flourishing in the sunshine of 
popular and royal favor. 

The inscription on the tombstone has not been without its 
effect. It has prevented the removal of his remains from the 
bosom of his native place to Westminster Abbey, which was 
at one time contemplated. A few years since also, as some 
laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth 
caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch, 
through which one might have reached into his grave. No 
one, however, presumed to meddle with his remains so awfully 
guarded by a malediction; and lest any of the idle or the 
curious, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to commit 



STRATFOBD-ON-AVON. 



63 



depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two 
days, until the vault was finished and the aperture closed again. 
He told me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but 
could see neither coffin nor bones ; nothing but dust. . It was 
something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakspeare. 

Next to this grave are those of his wife, his favorite 
daughter, Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a tomb 
close by, also, is a full-length effigy of his old friend John 
Combe of usurious memory; on whom he is said to have 
written a ludicrous epitaph. There are other monuments 
around, but the mind refuses to dwell on any thing that is not 
connected with Shakspeare. His idea pervades the place ; the 
whole pile seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings, no 
longer checked and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in perfect 
confidence : other traces of him may be false or dubious, but 
here is palpable evidence and absolute certainty. As I trod 
the sounding pavement, there was something intense and 
thrilling in the idea, that, in very truth, the remains of 
Shakspeare were mouldering beneath my feet. It was a long 
time before I could prevail upon myself to leave the place ; 
and as I passed through the churchyard, I plucked a branch 
from one of the yew-trees, the only relic that I have brought 
from Stratford. 

I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's devotion, 
but I had a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucys, at 
Cliarlecot, and to ramble through the park where Shakspeare, 
in company with some of the roysters of Stratford, committed 
his youthful offence of deer-stealing. In this hare-brained 
exploit we are told that he was taken prisoner, and carried to 
the keeper's lodge, where he remained all night in doleful cap- 
tivity. When brought into the presence of Sir Thomas Lucy 



64 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



his treatment must have been galling and humiliating ; for it so 
wrought upon his spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade, 
which was affixed to the park gate at Charlecot* 

This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the knight so 
incensed him, that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put 
the severity of the laws in force against the rhyming deer- 
stalker. Shakspeare did not wait to brave the united puissance 
of a knight of the shire and a country attorney. He forthwith 
abandoned the pleasant banks of the Avon and his paternal 
trade; wandered away to London; became a hanger-on to the 
theatres; then an actor; and, finally, wrote for the stage; and 
thus, through the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford 
lost an indifferent wool-comber, and the world gained an im- 
mortal poet. He retained, however, for a long time, a sense 
of the harsh treatment of the Lord of Charlecot, and revenged 
himself in his writings; but in the sportive way of a good- 
natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the original justice 
Shallow, and the satire is slyly fixed upon him by the justice's 
armorial bearings, which, like those of the knight, had white 
lucesf in the quarterings. 

Various attempts have been made by his biographers to 
soften and explain away this early transgression of the poet; 

* The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon: — 

" A parliament member, a justice of peace, 
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse, 
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it, 
Then Lucy is lowsie. whatever befall it. 
He thinks himself great : 
Yet an asse in his state. 
We allow by his ears but with asses to mate, 
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, 
. Then sing lowsie Lucy. whatever befall it." 

f The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon about Charlecot. 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 65 

1 . 1 1 1 L look upon it as one of those thoughtless exploits natural 
to his situation and turn of mind. Shakspeare, when young, 
had doubtless all the wildness and irregularity of an ardent, 
undisciplined, and undirected genius. The poetic temperament 
has naturally something in it of the vagabond. When left to 
itself it runs loosely and wildly, and delights in every thing 
eccentric and licentious. It is often a turn-up of a die, in the 
gambling freaks of fate, whether a natural genius shall turn 
out a great rogue or a great poet; and had not Shakspeare's 
mind fortunately taken a literary bias, he might have as daring- 
ly transcended all civil, as he has all dramatic laws. 

I have little doubt that, in early life, when running, like an 
unbroken colt, about the neighborhood of Stratford, he was to 
be found in the company of all kinds of odd anomalous charac- 
ters ; that he associated with all the madcaps of the place, and 
was one of those unlucky urchins, at mention of whom old 
men shake their heads, and predict that they will one day 
come to the gallows. To him the poaching in Sir Thomas 
Lucy's park was doubtless like a foray to a Scottish knight, 
and struck his eager, and, as yet untamed, imagination, as 
something delightfully adventurous.* 

* A proof of Shakspeare's random habits and associates in his youthful days, 
may be found in a traditionary anecdote, picked up at Stratford by the elder Ireland, 
and mentioned in his "Picturesque Views on the Avon." 

About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little market town of Bedford, 
famous for its ale. Two societies of the village yeomanry used to meet, under the 
appellation of the Bedford topers, and to challenge the lovers of good ale of the 
neighboring villages to a contest of drinking. Among others, the people of Strat- 
ford were called out to prove the strength of their heads; and in the number of 
the champions was Shakspeare, who, in spite of the proverb that "they who 
drink beer will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The 
chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and sounded a retreat while 
they had yet legs to carry them off' the field. They had scarcely marched a mile 
when, their legs failing them, they were forced to lie down under a crab-tree, 



g5 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still 
remain in the possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly 
interesting, from being connected with this whimsical but 
eventful circumstance in the scanty history of the bard. As 
the house stood but little more than three miles' distance from 
Stratford, I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I might 
stroll leisurely through some of those scenes from which Shaks- 
peare must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery. 

The country was yet naked and leafless ; but English scenery 
is always verdant, and the sudden change in the temperature 
of the weather was surprising in its quickening effects upon the 
landscape. It was inspiring and animating to witness this first 
awakening of spring; to feel its warm breath stealing over the 
senses; to see the moist mellow earth beginning to put forth 
the green sprout and the tender blade: and the trees and 
shrubs, in their reviving tints and bursting buds, giving the 
promise of returning foliage and flower. The cold snow-drop, 
that little borderer on the skirts of winter, was to be seen with 
its chaste white blossoms in the small gardens before the cot- 
tages. The bleating of the new-dropt lambs was faintly heard 



where they passed the night. It is still standing, and goes by the name of 
Shakspeare's tree. 

In the morning his companions awaked the bard, and proposed returning to 
Bedford, but he declined, saying he had had enough, having drank with 

v " Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, 

Haunted Hilbro', Hungry Grafton, 
Budging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bedford." 

" The 'villages here alluded to," says Ireland, "still bear the epithets thus given 
them: the people of Pebworth are still famed for their skill on the pipe and tabor. 
Hilborough .is now called Haunted Hilborough ; and Grafton is famous for the 
poverty of its soil." 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 



67 



from the fields. The sparrow twittered about the thatched 
eaves and budding hedges; the robin threw a livelier note 
into his late querulous wintry strain; and the lark, springing 
up from the reeking bosom of the meadow, towered away into 
the bright fleecy cloud, pouring forth torrents of melody. As 
I watched the little songster, mounting up higher and higher, 
until his body was a mere speck on the white bosom of the 
cloud, while the ear was still filled with his music, it called to 
mind Shakspeare's exquisite little song in Cymbeline: 




"And winking mary-buds begin 
To ope their golden eyes ; 
With every thing that pretty bin, 
My lady sweet arise I" 



Indeed the whole country about here is poetic ground: 
every thing is associated with the idea of Shakspeare. Every 
old cottage that I saw, I fancied into some resort of his boy- 
hood, where he had acquired his intimate knowledge of rustic 
life and manners, and heard those legendary tales and wild 
superstitions which he has woven like witchcraft into his 
dramas. For in his time, we are told, it was a popular amuse- 
ment in winter evenings "to sit round the fire, and tell merry 
tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, 



G8 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 




dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars."* 
My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, 
which made a variety of the most fancy doublings and wind- 
ings through a wide and fertile valley, sometimes glittering 
from among willows, which fringed its borders; sometimes 
disappearing among groves, or beneath green banks; and 
sometimes rambling out into full view, and making an azure 
sweep round a slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom 
of country is called the Vale of the Eed Horse. A distant line 
of undulating blue hills seems to be its boundary, whilst all the 



* Scot, iii his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," enumerates a host of these fireside 
fancies. " And they have so fraid us with bull-beggars, spirits, witches, urchins. 
elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, syrens, kit with the can sticke, tritons, 
centaurs, dwarfes, giantes, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changelings, incubus. 
Robin-good-fellow, the spoorne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hell-waine, the 
fier drake, the puckle, Tom Thombe, hobgoblins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such 
toher bu<rs, that we were afraid of our own shadowes." 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 69 

soft, intervening landscape lies in a manner enchained in the 
silver links of the Avon. 

After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off 
into a footpath, which led along the borders of fields, and under 
hedgerows to a private gate of the park; there was a stile, 
however, for the benefit of the pedestrian; there being a public 
right of way through the grounds. I delight in these hospita- 
ble estates, in which every one has a kind of property — at least 
as far as the footpath is concerned. It in some measure re- 
conciles a poor man to his lot, and, what is more, to the better 
lot of his neighbor, thus to have parks and pleasure-grounds 
thrown open for his recreation. He breathes the pure air as 
freely, and lolls as luxuriously under the shade, as the lord of 
the soil ; and if he has not the privilege of calling all that he 
sees his own, he has not, at the same time, the trouble of paying 
for it, and keeping it in order. 

I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms, 
whose vast size bespoke the growth of centuries. The wind 
sounded solemnly among their branches, and the rooks cawed 
from their hereditary nests in the tree tops. The eye ranged 
through a long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the 
view but a distant statue; and a vagrant deer stalking like a 
shadow across the opening. 

There is something about these stately old avenues that lias 
the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely from the pretended 
similarity of form, but from their bearing the evidence of long 
duration, and of having had their origin in a period of time 
with which we associate ideas of romantic grandeur. They 
betoken also the long-settled dignity, and proudly-concentrated 
independence of an ancient family; and I have heard a worthy 
but aristocratic old friend observe, when speaking of the 



70 



TIIK SKETCH BOOK. 



sumptuous palaces of modern gentry, that "money could do 
much with stone and mortar, but, thank Heaven, there was no 
such tiling as suddenly building up an avenue of oaks." 

It was from wandering in early life among tins rich scenery, 
and about the romantic solitudes of the adjoining park of 
Fullbroke, which then formed a part of the Lucy estate, that 
some of Shakspeare's commentators have supposed he derived 
his noble forest meditations of Jaques, and the enchanting 
woodland pictures in "As you like it." It is in lonely 
wanderings through such scenes, that the mind drinks deep 
but quiet draughts of inspiration, and becomes intensely 
sensible of the beauty and majesty of nature. The imagination 
kindles into reverie and rapture; vague but exquisite images 
and ideas keep breaking upon it; and we revel in a mute and 
almost incommunicable luxury of thought. It was in some 
such mood, and perhaps under one of those very trees before 
me, which threw their broad shades over the grassy banks and 
quivering waters of the Avon, that the poet's fancy ma v have 
sallied forth into that little song which breathes the very soul 
of a rural voluptuary: 




•■ Under the green wood tree, 
Who loves to lie with me, 

And tune his merry throat 
Unto the sweet bird's note, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither. 
Here shall lie see 
No enemy, 
Hill winter and rough weather." 



STKxVTFOKD-ON-AVON. 7] 




I had now come in sight of the house. It is a large building 
of brick, with stone quoins, and is in the Gothic style of Queen 
Elizabeth's day, having been built in the first year of her reign. 
The exterior remains very nearly in its original state, and may 
be considered a fair specimen of the residence of a wealthy 
country gentleman of those days. A great gateway opens from 
the park into a kind of court-yard in front of the house, orna- 
mented with a grass-plot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gate- 
way is in imitation of the ancient barbacan ; being a kind of 
outpost, and flanked by towers; though evidently for mere 
ornament, instead of defence. The front of the house is com- 
pletely in the old style ; with stone-shafted casements, a great 
bow-window of heavy stone-work, and a portal with armorial 
bearings over it, carved in stone. At each corner of the build- 
ing is an octagon tower, surmounted by a gilt ball and weather- 
cock. 

The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend just 
at the foot of a gently-sloping bank, which sweeps down from 
the rear of the house. Large herds of deer were feeding or 
reposing upon its borders; and swans were sailing majestically 
upon its bosom. As I contemplated the venerable old mansion, 



no THE SKETCH BOOK. 

I called to mind Falstaffs encomium on Justice Shallow's 
abode, and the affected indifference and real vanity of the 
latter : 

"Falstaff. You have a goodly dwelling and a rich. 
Shallow. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John:— marry 
good air." 

Whatever may have been the joviality of the old mansion 
in the days of Shakspeare, it had now an air of stillness and 
solitude. The great iron gateway that opened into the court- 
yard was locked; there was no show of servants bustling about 
the place ; the deer gazed quietly at me as I passed, being no 
longer harried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The only 
sign <>f domestic life that I met with was a white cat, stealing 
with wary look and stealthy pace towards the stables, as if on 
some nefarious expedition. I must not omit to mention the 
carcass of a scoundrel crow which I saw suspended against the 
barn wall, as it shows that the Lucys still inherit that lordly 
abhorrence of poachers, and maintain that rigorous exercise of 
territorial power which was so strenuously manifested in the 
case of the bard. 

After prowling about for some time, I at length found my 
way to a lateral portal, which was the every-day entrance to the 
mansion. I was courteously received by a worthy old house- 
keeper, who, with the civility and communicativeness of her 
order, showed me the interior of the house. The greater part 
has undergone alterations, and been adapted to modem tastes 
and modes of living: there is a line old oaken staircase; and 
the great hall, that noble feature in an ancient manor-house, 
still retains much of the appearance it must have had in the 
days of Shakspeare. The ceiling is arched and lofty; and at 
one end is a gallery in which stands an organ. The weapons 



STRATFORD-OX-AVON. 



73 




and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned the hall of a 
country gentleman, have made way for family portraits. There 
is a wide hospitable fireplace, calculated for an ample old- 
fashioned wood fire, formerly the rallying place of winter 
festivity. On the opposite side of the hall is the huge Gothic 
bow- window, with stone shafts, which looks out upon the court- 
yard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial bear- 
ings of the Lucy family for many generations, some being dated 
in 1558. I was delighted to observe in the quarterings the 
three white luces, by which the character of Sir Thomas was first 
identified with that of Justice Shallow. They are mentioned in 
the first scene of the Merry Wives of Windsor, where the 
Justice is in a rage with Falstaff for having "beaten his men, 
killed his deer, and broken into his lodge." The poet had no 
doubt the offences of himself and his comrades in mind at the 
time, and we may suppose the family pride and vindictive 



74 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



threats of the puissant Shallow to be a caricature of the pom- 
pous indignation of Sir Thomas. 

"Shallow. Sir Hugh persuade me not: I will make a Star-Chamber matter of 
it; if he were twenty John Falstaffs, lie shall not abuse Sir Robert Shallow. Esq. 

Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and coram. 

Shallow. Ay. cousin Slender, and custalorum. 

Slender. Ay. and ratalorum too, and a gentleman born, master parson; who 
writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, Armigero. 

Shallow. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years. 

Slender. All his successors gone before him have done't. and all his ancestors 
that come after him may; they may give the dozen white liters in their coat. . . . 

Shallow. The council shall hear it; it is a riot. 

Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot; there is no fear of Got in a 
riot; the council, hear you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a 
riot; take your vizaments in that. 

Shallow. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it!" 

Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait by Sir 
Peter Lely, of one of the Lucy family, a great beauty of the 
time of Charles the Second: the old housekeeper shook her 
head as she pointed to the picture, and informed me that this 
lady had been sadly addicted to cards, and had gambled away 
a great portion of the family estate, among which was that part 
of the park' where Shakspeare and his comrades had killed the 
' deer. The lands thus lost had not been entirely regained by 
the family even at the present day. It is but justice to this 
recreant dame to confess that she had a surpassingly fine hand 
and arm. 

The picture which most attracted my attention was a great 
painting over the fireplace, containing likenesses of Sir Thomas 
Lucy' and his family, who inhabited the hall in the latter part 
of Shakspeare's lifetime. I at first thought that it was the vin- 
dictive knight himself, but the housekeeper assured me that it 
was his son; the only likeness extant of the former being an 
effigy upon his tomb in the church of the neighboring hamlet 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 



75 



of Charlecot * The picture gives a lively idea of the costume 
and manners of the time. Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and 
doublet: white shoes with roses in them; and has a peaked 
yellow, or, as Master Slender would say, a "cane-colored 
heard."' His lady is seated on the opposite side of the picture 
in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have a most 




* This effigy is in white marble, and represents the Knight in complete armor. 
Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and on her tomb is the following inscription; 
which, if really composed by her husband, places him quite above the intellectual 
level of Master Shallow: 

- Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy wife of Sr Thomas Lucy of Charlecot in yo 
county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir of Thomas Acton of Sutton in ye 
county of Worcester Esquire who departed out of this wretched world to her hea- 
venly kingdom ye 10 day of February in yeyeare of our Lord God 1595 and of her 
age 60 and three. All the time of her lyfe a true and faytliful servant of her good 
God, never detected of any cryme or vice. In religion most sounde, in love to her 
husband most faythful and true. In friendship most constant; to what in trust 



76 THE SKETCH BOOK. 

venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels 
are mingled in the family group; a hawk is seated on his perch 
in the foreground, and one of the children holds a bow ; — all 
intimating the knight's skill in hunting, hawking, and archery 
— so indispensable to an accomplished gentleman in those days.* 
I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the hall had 
disappeared ; for I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow- 
chair of carved oak, in which the country squire of former 
days was wont to sway the sceptre of empire over his rural 
domains; and in which it might be presumed the redoubted 
Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state when the recreant 
Shakspeare was brought before him. As I like to deck out 
pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased myself with the 
idea that this very hall had been the scene of the unlucky 
bard's examination on the morning after his captivity in the 
lodge. I fancied to myself the rural potentate, surrounded by 
his body-guard of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving-men, 
with their badges; while the luckless culprit was brought 

was committed unto her most secret. In wisdom excelling. In governing of her 
house, bringing up of youth in ye fear of God that did converse with her moste 
rare and singular. A great maintayner of hospitality. Greatly esteemed of her 
betters ; misliked of none unless of the envyous. When all is spoken that can be 
saide a woman so garnished with virtue as not to be bettered and hardly to be 
equalled by any. As shee lived most virtuously so shee died most Godly. Set 
downe by him yt best did knowe what hath byn written to be true. 

''Thomas Lucye." 

* Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his time, observes, " His 
housekeeping is seen much in the different families of dogs and serving-men attend, 
ant on their kennels; and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his dis- 
course. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceedingly am- 
bitious to seem delighted with the sport, and have his fist gloved with his jesses." 
And Gilpin, in his description of a Mr. Hastings, remarks, "He kept all sorts of 
hounds that run buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and had hawks of all kinds 
both long and short, winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow- 
bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. On a broad 
hearth, paved with brick, iay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels." 



STKATFOED-ON-AVON. 



77 




in, forlorn and chopfallen, in the custody of gamekeepers, 
huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of 
country clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids 
peeping from the half-open doors ; while from the gallery the 
fair daughters of the knight leaned gracefully forward, eyeing 
the youthful prisoner with that pity "that dwells in woman- 
hood.' 1 Who would have thought that this poor varlet, thus 
trembling before the brief authority of a country squire, and 
the sport of rustic boors, was soon to become the delight of 
princes, the theme of all tongues and ages, the dictator to the 
human mind, and was to confer immortality on his oppressor 
by a caricature and a lampoon ! 

I was now invited by the butler to walk into the garden, and 
I felt inclined to visit the orchard and arbor where the justice 
treated Sir John Falstaff and Cousin Silence "to a last vear's 



78 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



pippin of his own grafting, with a dish of caraways;" but I had 
already spent so much of the day in my ramblings that I was 
obliged to give up any further investigations. When about 
to take my leave I was gratified by the civil entreaties of the 
housekeeper and butler, that I would take some refreshment : 
an instance of good old hospitality which, I grieve to say, we 
castle-hunters seldom meet with in modern days. I make no 
doubt it is a virtue which the present representative of the 
Lucys inherits from his ancestors ; for Shakspeare, even in his 
caricature, makes Justice Shallow importunate in this respect, 
as witness his pressing instances to Falstaff. 

" By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away to-night ... I will not excuse 
you; you shall not bo excused; excuses shall not he admitted; there is no excuse 
shall serve; you shall not he excused . . . Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of 
short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell 
William < 'ook." 

I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My mind 
had become so completely possessed by the imaginary scenes 
and characters connected with it, that I seemed to be actually 
living among them. Every thing brought them as it were 
before my eyes; and as the door of the dining-room opened, 
I almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence 
quavering forth his favorite ditty : 

"'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all, 
And welcome merry shrove-tide!" 

On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect on the sin- 
gular gift of the poet; to be able thus to spread the magic of 
his mind over the very face of nature: to give to things and 
places a charm and character not their own, and to turn this 
"working-day world" into a perfect fairy-land. He is indeed 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 79 

the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, 
but upon the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard 
influence of Shakspeare I had been walking all day in a com- 
plete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape through the 
prism of poetry, which tinged every object with the hues of the 
rainbow. I had been surrounded with fancied beings ; with 
mere airy nothings, conjured up by poetic power; yet which, 
to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard Jacques solilo- 
quize beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her 
companion adventuring through the woodlands ; and, above all, 
had been once more present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff and 
his contemporaries, from the august Justice Shallow, down to 
the gentle Master Slender and the sweet Anne Page. Ten 
thousand honors and blessings on the bard who has thus gilded 
the dull realities of life with innocent illusions ; who has spread 
exquisite and unbought pleasures in my checkered path; and 
beguiled my spirit in many a lonely hour, with all the cordial 
and cheerful sympathies of social life ! 

As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, I 
paused to contemplate the distant church in which the poet 
lies buried, and could not but exult in the malediction, which 
has kept his ashes undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed vaults. 
What honor could his name have derived from being mingled 
in dusty companionship with the epitaphs and escutcheons and 
venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? What would a crowd- 
ed corner in Westminster Abbey have been, compared with 
this reverend pile, which seems to stand in beautiful loneliness 
as his sole mausoleum! The solicitude about the grave may 
be but the offspring of an over-wrought sensibility ; but human 
nature is made up of foibles and prejudices; and its best and 
tenderest affections are mingled with these factitious feelings. 



80 



THE SKETCH BOOK. 



He who has sought renown about the world, and has reaped a 
full harvest of worldly favor, will find, after all, that there is no 
love, no admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that 
which springs up in his native place. It is there that he seeks 
to be gathered in peace and honor among his kindred and his 
early friends. . And when the weary heart and failing head 
begin to warn him that the evening of life is drawing on, he 
turns as fondly, as does the infant to the mother's arms, to sink 
to sleep in the bosom of the scene of his childhood. 

How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful bard 
when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world, he 
cast back a heavy look upon his paternal home, could he have 
foreseen that, before many years, he should return to it covered 
with renown ; that his name should become the boast and glory 
of his native jnace ; that his ashes should be religiously guard- 
ed as its most precious treasure ; and that its lessening spire, on 
which his eyes were fixed in tearful contemplation, should one 
day become the beacon, towering amidst the gentle landscape, 
to guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his tomb ! 




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